To SDC members in the Atlantic Zone-

Well, it’s almost holiday time, so it means that I’m late again on reporting on what happened during the past year at the international club level. As usual, the full board minutes are printed in the November issue of Turning Wheels, but here are the highlights with a bit of additional explanatory info. The first four items below were actually undertaken during the past year by email. Items 5 – 16 were decided at the Cedar Rapids board meeting.

1. Last year, Mr. Joseph Rodriguez was accused of stealing some items from a vendor’s space at the Lancaster meet. These are always difficult matters to deal with, but the bylaws provide guidance on how the board should proceed. Ultimately, his advertising and membership privileges were revoked, which was the harshest penalty that the club could impose.

2. A somewhat similar situation occurred with Mr. Brock Cureton, who was accused by several members of misrepresenting the condition of vehicles sold through ads in TW. Attempts by the SDC Complaints Committee chair to mediate the disputes having failed, his advertising privileges were suspended.

3. Drive Your Studebaker Day was considered a big success and will be scheduled again for next year. Matthew Burnette, SDC’s young columnist from Georgia, will handle it again, and was reimbursed for his expenses.

4. Stu Tritt will handle registrations at the 2010 and 2011 international meets. Registration in recent years has been handled by Cornerstone Registration, which also handles SDC dues and membership matters and the sale of back issues. Cornerstone has done an excellent job in both areas, but Stu Tritt’s bid for the next two years was substantially lower. As noted below, SDC is expected to run a deficit next year, and the board was looking everywhere it could to save money.

5. The board decided to provide free rooms at future international meets for the SDC president, chair of the International Meet Committee, chief judge, and the host chapter. These four people/groups spend most of their time during meet week doing meet business, and have little time to enjoy the meet. Free swap meet spaces will be provided to the Studebaker National Foundation, Studebaker National Museum, and the hosts of future international and zone meets. Attempts will be made to obtain the rooms at no charge from the host hotel; if not, SDC will pay for them from the International Meet Committee’s budget.

6. A formal audit of SDC’s books was conducted, with only a few minor procedural discrepancies noted. SDC is a New York corporation, and must comply with NY corporate law. The board voted to have the club’s finances audited every year from now on. The cost next year will be $6500. The club lost a substantial sum through fraud about five years ago, and is doing everything it can to prevent a recurrence. The board is lucky to have as a member and chair of the Audit Committee Hazel Holland, a banker from Texas.

7. Membership declined slightly again, with most of the attrition occurring among new members. Board member Tom Curtis spent many months collecting data and studying the club’s membership challenges over the winter. He presented an exhaustive report on his findings, and outlined a number of potential approaches for consideration by the board. On the local level, zone coordinators, regional managers, and chapters should consider identifying a single individual to focus on recruitment, formulate a plan to recruit new members, and give the process a personal touch. Old copies of TW are a good recruiting tool and are available free to chapters from Cornerstone. Expect to hear about more new recruiting initiatives from Tom Curtis.

8. Henry Votel was appointed as SDC national recruiting chairman last year, and provided a lengthy report on why people choose not to renew. Most were understandable, such as the family sold its Studebaker, the SDC member died, etc. In some cases, the person had intended to renew, but had forgotten – so the personal call from Henry actually served to remind them to do it right away. He was reappointed for another year.

9. Conservation of the Lincoln carriage has been completed by Amish carriage builders, and the carriage is back on display at the Studebaker National Museum. Conservation is different from what most of us think of as restoration. While broken parts are repaired or replaced, the focus is on removing layers of varnish and paint to expose as much of the original finish as possible. During conservation, Mr. Lincoln’s initials “AL” were revealed for the first time in many decades. $25K from the SDC-administered (but separate) Restoration Fund was donated to the Studebaker National Museum for conservation of their other Presidential carriages. SDC’s grant will be matched by a Federal fund entitled Save America’s Treasures. In other news, the Museum was accredited by the American Association of Museums – one of only three automobile museums to be so honored.

10. Webmaster Bob Shaw reported that visits to the SDC Website and Forum continue to increase. Improvements and enhancements to the Forum were approved, and Bob Shaw was reappointed for another year. Last year, there was considerable discussion on the Forum about why SDC doesn’t have a separate classified ad section on its Web site (actually, it does, but it only carries ads that have already been printed in TW). Several posters were very passionate that the club should permit any Stude-related ad, whether carried in TW or not, to be posted on its Web site. As a result, I agreed to bring the matter up before the board. Unfortunately, except for me, there was no support for the idea on the board. It’s also worth noting that none of the other board members had heard from any of their constituents on the matter – so it appears that supporters of the idea limited their inputs to rants on the Forum, and did not pass along their thoughts to the only people who could change the policy.

11. Art Unger and Ann Turner were reappointed as editors of TW for another two years. Photography at future international meets will be their responsibility.

12. Three printers submitted bids to print TW for the next two years. Unfortunately, they didn’t all base their bids on exactly the same size magazine, so the board had to delay formal adjournment (twice) in order to obtain exactly comparable bids. Ultimately, the board chose Sheridan Press. This will be a change from Good Printers, which has printed TW and some other SDC pubs for many years. However, SDC member Chester Bradfield has retired as president of Good Printers, and Good’s bid was significantly higher than Sheridan’s.

13. As chair of the International Meet Committee, VP Richard Dormois devotes considerable effort to lining up proposals for future meets. This year he had put together a package for 2014 from the Dover Downs Resort and Casino in Dover, Delaware. Richard had assembled a very comprehensive package, with major concessions in price from the hotel, the provision of four hotel personnel to assist with registration for six days, and another four to assist with parking on concours day. The whole package was very impressive, but I was concerned that the Delmarva Chapter was simply too small to carry off an event as big as an SDC International Meet. (And given the very desirable location that is within a day’s drive of about 25% of SDC’s membership, it was likely to be a VERY big meet.) Keystone had 30 – 35 people working on several committees for about two full years before the Lancaster meet, and a similar number working 12-hour days during the meet. That’s about the same number of people as Delmarva has members. I really wanted to vote for a proposal from a chapter in our own zone, but felt that there was no need to vote this early on a proposal for a meet that is still five years away. But a vote was held, and the Dover’s proposal was approved 8 votes to 4, with 2 abstentions. I abstained.

14. Chester Bradfield provided the annual report from the Studebaker National Foundation and requested that the proceeds from the next two annual auctions be donated to the Foundation. Several board members argued that with membership declining and a deficit in the offing, the SDC needed to keep the proceeds for itself. I proposed that the proceeds from the auctions be divided as follows: 25% to the Foundation, 25% to the Museum, and 50% retained by SDC. I voted for this motion, but it failed, 3 yes votes to 5 no votes, with 6 abstentions.

15. As usual, the board spent considerable time debating the details of the annual budget. And as usual, most of SDC’s income goes to maintain the excellence of Turning Wheels. The dues have been held at the same level for a number of years, while the cost of paper and postage have increased substantially. At the same time, membership has declined slightly. In the end, the board decided to leave the regular dues at $27.50 for one more year, even though the club is expected to operate at a small deficit for 2009-2010. A dues increase can be expected next year. At the Cedar Rapids general membership meeting, Ed Reynolds conducted an informal poll of the members in attendance. They voted almost unanimously that they would prefer a dues increase to a reduction in the quality of TW.

16. Ed Reynolds declined to run again for President, and Mimi Halgren of California was elected as his successor. Richard Dormois was reelected Vice President, and Jane Stinson was declared the winner by acclimation as Treasurer. Jan Lockmon declined to run again as Secretary, and Nita Ketchum of Arkansas was declared winner by acclimation to succeed her.

In other Atlantic Zone news, Frank Drumheller has decided not to run again as Atlantic Zone Coordinator, and I have decided not to run again as board member for the Atlantic Zone. Those interested in running for either of these positions can nominate themselves to VP Richard Dormois. The deadline for submission is/was November 20.

The November issue of TW includes the minutes from both the Cedar Rapids board and general membership meetings. Anyone wishing more info on any item is welcome to drop me an email.

Skip Lackie

Board member, Atlantic Zone

October 2009